January 9, 2022 This article seeks to explore Integral Social Work — its meaning and applications. This goal is achieved by exploring the nature of social service in the context of Integral Theory’s AQAL (all- quadrant, all-level) approach. The essence of Integral Social Work is to serve the whole person and the whole of society with the whole of one’s being. This requires that social workers develop themselves, while simultaneously helping others, and society, to develop in as full, complex, and healthy a way as possible.
David Kerrigan
DAVID KERRIGAN, Ph.D., LCSW, serves as Executive Director of the Center for Spirituality and Integral Social Work at The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. He works as a clinical social worker at Adoption/ Attachment partners in Northern Virginia, a psychotherapy practice specializing in helping children and their families with attachment problems. His dissertation on the helping relationship with clinical social work clients and spiritual seekers was one of the first dissertations to use Integral Theory. He is developing a psychosocial self-report measure integrating spiritual transcendence and attachment theory.
